The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight; our summary of the news; then, four election segments: Today in the presidential campaign; the latest from the battleground states of Michigan and Ohio; a media unit look at the advertising battleground; and a Paul Solman look at the premise that voters usually vote their economic self-interest-- plus some closing nonpolitical words about what the Boston Red Sox did to the St. Louis Cardinals, and to history.

NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: The presidential candidates challenged each other's fitness to be commander- in-chief today. President Bush said Sen. Kerry has taken many positions on many issues, but has rarely taken a firm stand. And he said: "The senator's willingness to trade principle for political convenience makes it clear that John Kerry is the wrong man for the wrong job at the wrong time."

JIM LEHRER: The senator criticized Mr. Bush for his handling of Iraq, and for his recent mentions of President Kennedy. He said: "John Kennedy knew how to take responsibility for the mistakes he made. And, Mr. President, it's long since time for you to start taking responsibility for the mistakes you made."

JIM LEHRER: We'll have more on the campaign day right after the News Summary. There were new questions today about 380 tons of missing munitions in Iraq. A U.S. infantry commander said it's "very highly improbable" anyone could have moved the high explosives after U.S. forces arrived in April of 2003. He said the roads near the storage depot, south of Baghdad, were filled with U.S. military traffic for weeks. Separately, ABC News reported U.N. documents mentioned just three tons of explosives at the site in January of last year. But the U.N. nuclear agency said most of the explosives were kept outside the main site. And it said again the United States was warned about looting. In Iraq today, militants released a video of the grisly killings of 11 Iraqi army soldiers. One was beheaded, and the others were shot execution style. The men were taken hostage a week ago. Their captors urged other Iraqi troops to quit the military, or face death. And al-Jazeera television broadcast video of a Polish woman abducted this week in Baghdad. She appealed to Poland to withdraw its 2,400 troops. Also today, two U.S. soldiers were killed in separate attacks in central Iraq. Two others were wounded. Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat will be flown to Paris for medical treatment. Doctors confirmed it today, after his health took a turn for the worse late Wednesday. We have a report narrated by Gary Gibbon of Independent Television News.

GARY GIBBON: These pictures have been rushed out by the Palestinian Authority, desperate to stop rumors of Yasser Arafat's imminent death. Last night Mr. Arafat collapsed and briefly lost consciousness. He is believed to be suffering from a serious blood disorder. Last night Mr. Arafat's doctors were sufficiently worried to summon his wife from Paris, where she's lived for nearly four years. Suha Arafat arrived at his compound this evening. Inside she will have seen her husband, a pale imitation of the man she last met. The Palestinian leader who roamed the globe is now stuck in Ramallah in the west bank, confined for nearly three years inside a battered compound in tiny, windowless quarters, no longer a stopping point for world leaders. Yasser Arafat's health has been poor for years, his actual condition a secret. Aides have claimed his latest decline was simply a case of the flu. Today they dropped the pretense.

SAEB EREKAT, Palestinian Cabinet Minister: I'm not denying the president is sick. Today a consortium of Palestinian, Egyptian, Jordanian and Tunisian doctors will recommend whether the president will continue his treatment in Ramallah or go somewhere outside.

GARY GIBBON: The Israeli government promised Mr. Arafat he was now free to leave his compound. The west bank was reportedly calm this evening, and Mr. Arafat's supporters were trying the keep it that way, saying there would be no power struggle for the succession because no single Palestinian could expect to fill all Mr. Arafat's positions-- head of the PLO, president of the PalestinianAuthority and head of the Fatah movement.

JIM LEHRER: Late today, Jordan sent two helicopters to the West Bank to pick up Arafat. He'll be taken first to Amman, and then flown on a plane to France. The FBI has launched a criminal investigation of Halliburton's no-bid contracts in Iraq. The Associated Press reported that today. It said the focus is on whether the army improperly awarded the contracts. The AP report said the FBI wants to interview an army contracting officer who alleged the misconduct. Halliburton said today the allegations are just election- year politics. A spokeswoman said the General Accounting Office found the contracts were properly awarded. The U.S. military halted mandatory anthrax vaccinations last night. It acted after a federal judge ruled against the practice. The judge said the Food and Drug Administration did not allow full public comment before it approved the vaccine. The Justice Department said it was considering an appeal. Hundreds of troops have refused to take the shots, and been punished or discharged. On Wall Street today, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained two points to close above 10,004. The NASDAQ rose five points to close above 1,975. The Boston Red Sox were welcomed home today, after finally doing what they had not done in 86 years. They won the World Series, and thus became the world champions of baseball. Last night, in St. Louis, the Red Sox beat the St. Louis Cardinals to complete a four- game sweep. That set off celebrations in Boston that lasted well into the wee hours. Police made a number of arrests, but there was no major violence. We'll have more on this at the end of the program. Between now and then: The presidential campaign; the battleground states of Michigan and Ohio; the advertising campaign; and is it really the economy, stupid?

FOCUS - CAMPAIGN DAY

JIM LEHRER: Kwame Holman reports on this campaign day.

KWAME HOLMAN: Five days before the election, President Bush and John Kerry are concentrating primarily in the Midwest, on a handful of states where polls show the race is too close to call. The president stumped today in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan, -- the same three he campaigned in yesterday. Typical of his campaign stops lately, the president asked supporters in Saginaw, Michigan, to help get voters of all persuasions to the polls.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: It's good to be back in Saginaw. I am grateful so many of you came out to say hello. Listen, I'm traveling your state, asking for the vote and asking for your help. (Cheers and applause) It is close to voting day. In our free land, free citizens we have a duty in our country to vote. In our free land, free citizens must vote, and so I'm asking you to get your friends and neighbors to go to the polls. Turn out our fellow Republicans, find independents who understand we have a better tomorrow ahead of us, and don't overlook discerning Democrats. (Cheers and applause) Tell your fellow citizens that if they want a safer country, a strong country, and a better country, to put me and Dick Cheney back into office. (Cheers and applause)

KWAME HOLMAN: Moving on to Dayton, Ohio, the president again accused Sen. Kerry of changing positions on the war in Iraq.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: What does that lack of conviction say to our troops who are risking their lives in this vital cause? (Cheers and applause) Think about what that says to our allies who have joined our cause. Think about what that says... that lack of conviction say to our enemies-- that if you make things uncomfortable, if you stir up trouble,John Kerry will back off. And that's a very dangerous signal in the world in which we live. (Cheers and applause) Just this week, Sen. Kerry showed his willingness to put politics ahead of facts and the truth. He criticized our military's handling of explosives in Iraq, when his own advisers admitted he didn't know what had happened. His spokesman has now had to acknowledge that the explosives may have been moved before our troops arrived. (Cheers) A president needs to get all of the facts before jumping to politically motivated conclusions. (Cheers and applause) The senator's willingness to trade principle for political convenience makes it clear that John Kerry is the wrong man for the wrong job at the wrong time. (Cheers and applause)

KWAME HOLMAN: John Kerry also was in Ohio, addressing a crowd at the University of Toledo.

SEN. JOHN KERRY: I hope George Bush can hear that. That is the rumble of change coming at him..

KWAME HOLMAN: The senator took the opportunity to gloat about last night's World Series victory by the Boston Red Sox.

SEN. JOHN KERRY: It's been 86 years! About a year ago, when things weren't going so well in my campaign, somebody called a radio talk show and they said, thinking they were just cutting me right to the quick, they said, John Kerry won't be president until the Red Sox win the World Series. (Cheers and applause) Well, we're on our way! We're on our way!

KWAME HOLMAN: Sen. Kerry then responded to President Bush's repeated charge that he makes statements without first understanding the facts.

SEN. JOHN KERRY: I'm going to imply the bush-- apply the Bush standard to this. Yesterday... yesterday George Bush said, and I quote him, a political candidate who jumps to conclusions without knowing the facts is not a person you want as your commander-in-chief when it comes to your security. (Applause) Well, Mr. President, I agree with you. George Bush jumped to conclusions about 9/11 and Saddam Hussein. George Bush jumped to conclusions about weapons of mass destruction, and he rushed to war without a plan the win the peace. George Bush jumped to conclusions about how the Iraqi people would receive our troops. He not only jumped to conclusions, he ignored the facts that he was given by his generals, by the Congress, by the experts.

KWAME HOLMAN: The senator pointed specifically to the missing explosives in Iraq.

SEN. JOHN KERRY: Here's the bottom line: They're not where they're supposed to be. You were warned to guard them. You didn't guard them. They're not secure. Guess what? According to George Bush's own words, he shouldn't be our commander-in-chief, and I couldn't agree more. (Cheers and applause)

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN (singing): I believe in a promise land --

KWAME HOLMAN: This afternoon, Sen. Kerry got some help from rocker Bruce Springsteen, who played, and endorsed the senator, before tens of thousands of mostly Kerry supporters near the state capitol building in Madison, Wisconsin.

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN: Ladies and gentlemen, the next president of the United States...

KWAME HOLMAN: Sen. Kerry reminded the crowd how important every vote will be next Tuesday.

SEN. JOHN KERRY: Every single one of you has to remember it was 537 votes in Florida and one vote on the Supreme Court. Wisconsin helped win the presidency for John Kennedy in 1960. I'm asking you to help me win the presidency in 2004.

KWAME HOLMAN: Tomorrow, John Kerry will break away from the Midwest and spend the day campaigning in Orlando, West Palm Beach, and Miami, Florida. President Bush will head east to campaign in Manchester and Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and then return to Ohio for events in Toledo and Columbus.

JIM LEHRER: Now to Margaret Warner for more on some of the battleground states.

MARGARET WARNER: In 2000, Wisconsin went for Al Gore by a razor-thin margin of less than 6,000 votes. Ohio, the state both candidates visited today, went for then-candidate George W. Bush by a more comfortable, but still lean, 4 percent. This year, both states are hotly contested again. For more now on Wisconsin and Ohio, we turn to two political reporters in those states: Meg Kissinger of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and Darrel Rowland of the Columbus Dispatch. Welcome to you both.

Darrel Rowland, we saw both candidates in Ohio today. What's it like if you're an Ohio voter? How intense is the campaign?

DARREL ROWLAND: Margaret, there is no way you can get away from this campaign even if you wanted to. You turn on your TV, there are ads at every commercial break. There are so many ads that the local candidates who want to advertise can't get space. You turn on the radio, the candidates are there. You pick up your phone, there's robo calls on your telephone. You go to your mailbox, there's direct mail pieces. We did a story today where one person got as many as 20 direct mail pieces. Of course, the candidates themselves are in the state. Approximately a dozen times in the last few days of the campaign, including, even as we speak, about three miles from where I'm sitting in Columbus, Bruce Springsteen or a crowd is gathering to see Bruce Springsteen and Sen. Kerry here in Columbus.

MARGARET WARNER: Meg Kissinger, in Wisconsin, I'm going to assume you've been subjected to the same barrage in Wisconsin. We've heard the candidates being part accident and tough on each other. Is the mood as partisan and tough among Wisconsin voters?

MEG KISSINGER: Oh, yeah. If these guys come here anymore times, they'll start mooing. The mood among the voters is intense. There were reports of people burning swastikas into peoples' lawns, rocks being thrown at Kerry campaign people, people spitting on Bush campaign people. It's intense.

MARGARET WARNER: Mr. Rowland, back to you in Ohio. Explain the political dynamic. What's going on there? This is a state, as we said, that then-candidate Bush won by 4 percentage points. Why is it a state that the Kerry folks really think they have a shot at?

DARREL ROWLAND: Ohio's historically been a bellwether in presidential elections. The state has only missed two elections, if you will, since 1900. In all the other elections it backed the winner. Ohio is a test market for many national products. You might say it's a test market for politicians, as well. Sen. Kerry looks back at 2000 and sees where then-Governor Bush only won by 3.6 percentage points. That was after Vice President Gore had pulled out of the state essentially in the last month of the campaign. Ohio is also experienced among the nation's largest number of job lost. So Ohio is definitely a right target for the Democrats.

MARGARET WARNER: Now, on the president's side of the ledger, though, cultural issues are also still quite important in parts of Ohio. Don't you have a gay marriage amendment on the ballot -- or anti-gay marriage?

DARREL ROWLAND: We do indeed. That's right. A constitutional amendment, a proposed constitutional amendment that would define marriage as between one man and one woman and would also deny the benefits of marriage to anything other than traditional marriage is probably the easiest way to put it. Most people think this is really going to help the Republicans because this will generate more conservatives probably coming out to the polls, as has been well reported. President Bush's political adviser, Karl Rove, talk about the evangelical vote being underrepresented in 2000. Issues like this, though, are getting folks energized that weren't energized four years ago.

MARGARET WARNER: Meg Kissinger, give us the same kind of analysis of what's going on in Wisconsin where it came down to the wire in 2000. What's working for each man there?

MEG KISSINGER: Jobs are very important here, as they are everywhere. There's been a... we have a heavy manufacturing base here in Milwaukee. There's been, of the swing states, Wisconsin has regained more jobs than other states, but those jobs have been service economy, lower-paying jobs. So it's believed that that's going to be the... the economy will be a strong issue in Wisconsin.

MARGARET WARNER: Somebody, a Kerry person said to me yesterday you could almost draw a line in half across the state, and the northern part of the state tends to be Republican and in the southern it's Democratic. Is it that simple?

MEG KISSINGER: Not really, no. In fact, Wisconsin's kind of a funny state in that several rural areas you would consider or suspect to be going for the Republicans have actually gone to Democrats in the past. Gore actually won a number of cities along the Mississippi Valley that are quite rural.

MARGARET WARNER: And...

MEG KISSINGER: Conversely, sorry, conversely in Milwaukee County, that went for Bush last time, though narrowly.

MARGARET WARNER: Tell us about the Nader factor. He got 4 percent last time. He is on the ballot, isn't he?

MEG KISSINGER: He is. He's one of seven candidates on the ballot here in Wisconsin. He's not really been a factor this time around.

MARGARET WARNER: How do the pollsters explain that?

MEG KISSINGER: Well, I think because of the intensity focused on the two primary candidates, and Nader hasn't made as strong as a push here. Again, there are a total of seven presidential candidates on the ballot. That tends to diffuse that.

MARGARET WARNER: Darrel Rowland, back to you. Let's talk about voting procedures and so on. Now, the secretary of state says Ohio, 500,000 new voters have registered, but there have been all of these continue tests, challenges so far.

DARREL ROWLAND: Right.

MARGARET WARNER: Do you, and does your reporting tell you that Ohio could be the Florida of 2000?

DARREL ROWLAND: Frankly, that's been said so often that's almost the clich of the year in both senses of the word. One, Ohio could be very, very close on election night, and in fact, we may not know the winner election night or the next morning or who knows how long. And number two, in that our voting procedures are so much under fire, they may or may not withstand security. We are in court today, as a matter of fact, on the Republican's effort to challenge about 35,000 of these newly registered voters across the state. They lost that at the federal court level. However, there have been appeals made today -- actually, three different appeals: One by the Franklin County Board of Elections here in Columbus; one by the Republican Party and one by another group, one by our attorney-general, Jim Pietro. So that's an emergency appeal to the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, so stay tuned for more developments on that.

MARGARET WARNER: And what kind of voting system does Ohio have in terms of machines?

DARREL ROWLAND: That's the other thing. Ohio is one of the few states in America that has not modernized its voting system very much. Almost three-fourths of Ohioans will vote on the good old punch card system again. We did a study of the 2000 election, and if you looked at the predominantly black precincts compared to the rest of the state, the rate of uncounted votes in those areas was almost triple than the rest of the state. So that's caused a lot of concern, but there is not a whole lot you can do about it at this point. We're definitely not going to change the type of voting system between now and Tuesday.

MARGARET WARNER: And, Meg Kissinger, in Wisconsin, you have 200,000 new voters. Are they anticipating any new voting procedure problems there?

MEG KISSINGER: We have a history of clean elections here and a progressive voting population. There's not a lot of expectation of monkey business, but just in case you can bet there are plenty of lawyers waiting in the wings and salivating.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Meg Kissinger and Darrel Rowland, thank you both.

DARREL ROWLAND: Thank you, Margaret.

MEG KISSINGER: Thank you.

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight: The ad campaign; voting your self- interest; and good bye, curse.

FOCUS - AD WATCH

JIM LEHRER: This there is indeed an advertising war waging over the airwaves in the battleground states. And for that we go to media correspondent Terence Smith.

TERENCE SMITH: With less than a week to go in the presidential race, the candidates are barnstorming in a handful of key battleground states, and concentrating their television advertising in the same pivotal markets. The blizzard of ads is sponsored variously by the campaigns, the national party committees, and ostensibly independent partisan groups on each side. This ad, from moveon.org, a progressive political action group, targets President Bush.

AD:

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere. ( Laughter ) nope, no weapons over there.

WOMAN: My brother died in Baghdad on April 29. I watched President Bush make a joke, looking around for weapons of mass destruction. My brother died looking for weapons of mass destruction.

AD SPOKESPERSON: Over 1,000 troops like Ryan have died in Iraq. Yet there never were any weapons. George Bush: He just doesn't get it.

TERENCE SMITH: Here's an excerpt from an ad run by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a group formed explicitly to oppose Sen. Kerry.

SWIFT VETS AD:

SPOKESMAN: They served their country with courage and distinction. They're the men who served with John Kerry in Vietnam. They're his entire chain of command, most of the officers in Kerry's unit-- even the gunner from his own boat. And they're the men who spent years in North Vietnamese prison camps, tortured for refusing to confess what John Kerry accused them of: Of being war criminals.

TERENCE SMITH: The Bush campaign is running this ad in heavy rotation now.

BUSH CAMPAIGN AD:

AD SPOKESPERSON: In an increasingly dangerous world, even after the first terrorist attack on America, John Kerry and the liberals in Congress voted to slash America's intelligence operations by $6 billion-- cuts so deep, they would have weakened America's defenses. And weakness attracts those who are waiting to do America harm.

TERENCE SMITH: And the Kerry campaign has this ad up in swing states.

KERRY CAMPAIGN AD:

SEN. JOHN KERRY: They're misleading Americans about what I said. I will never cede America's security to any institution or to any other country. No one gets a veto over our security no one. I will never take my eye off Osama bin Laden, al-Qaida, and the terror in Afghanistan. We're going to hunt down the terrorists. We will kill them. We'll do whatever's necessary to protect America.

TERENCE SMITH: All told, over $530 million has been spent on presidential election advertising. And as the race draws to a close, the appeals are aimed less at voters' hopes than at their fears.

TERENCE SMITH: Joining me now to discuss those ads and the ad campaigns are Evan Tracey, chief operating officer and founder of the TNSMI campaign media analysis group. And Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania. Welcome to you both. Evan Tracey, $530 million and still counting?

EVAN TRACEY: $532 million and still counting. We're seeing close to $45 million per week being spent now in this presidential campaign. Four years ago, $200 million was about the cap that we saw. So this has been a longer campaign and a more expensive campaign being waged, not just by Bush and Kerry, but by the parties and a lot of friends.

TERENCE SMITH: Is one side, Kerry... the Kerry side or the Bush side, spending more than other?

EVAN TRACEY: Head to head, Bush to Kerry, Bush maintains a fairly sizable spending advantage over Kerry. However, there have been 44 groups that have weighed in with advertising in this race on behalf of Sen. Kerry's campaign. That spending is going to put Sen. Kerry way ahead of what the Bush/Cheney and the RNC and his allies have been able to spend in this election, so advantage to Bush vis- -vis Kerry; advantage to Kerry when you lump in all these groups and outside spending.

TERENCE SMITH: And where are they spending this money, where are they focusing these ads, and where, if they are, are they pulling them back?

EVAN TRACEY: Well, it started out as about a 20-state playing field, briefly expanded to 22, and now it is contracted to about 13 key states. And they are a lot of the states you hear about, the Iowas, the Ohios, the New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Florida, Pennsylvania, of course. You know, these states right now are really what it all comes down to. They are still spending in Colorado and New Hampshire and Maine, in Oregon, in places like that, but the major spending is in those earlier states I listed.

TERENCE SMITH: And Kathleen Hall Jamieson, you're in Pennsylvania and so you're right in the center of it all. But in other states, you'd hardly know there is a campaign going.

KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON: Yes, and you might be relieved as a result.

TERENCE SMITH: (Laughs) Yeah, I suppose you might. Let's talk a little about the tone and tenor of the ads that we just ran, and the setup, and maybe some other ads that you've seen. Those first two were from 527s, the so-called independent groups. And that first one on President Bush was pretty tough.

KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON: The history of this campaign is going to say that this was the most attack-driven campaign, period, in the history of the modern presidency. And we're closing with a high level of attack, which is in some ways interesting and problematic because you'd like a reason to vote for people, not just against. The attack on President Bush is taking a moment from a speech that was in its context set in humor. There is humor all around the speech, in which he's joking about not finding weapons of mass destruction, joking inappropriately, in my judgment, but nonetheless in a humorous context and juxtaposing it with the stark reality of death in Iraq. The ad is doing what ads classically do in politics: It's trying to create a frame that is so strong with emotion that's so riveting that you just accept it uncritically. So, for example, when the sister of the brother who has died says that he died looking for the weapons of mass destruction, you're inclined to accept that as your frame of reference around not only the ad, but around Iraq. The alternative frame, one the ad does not invite, would say, "He died liberating the people of Iraq from Saddam Hussein."

TERENCE SMITH: In this ad, Evan Tracey, has it being getting a big buy in certain states?

EVAN TRACEY: It hasn't been getting a big buy. It's been primarily on national cable. Moveon is a group that has probably spent about $19 million in this race primarily running ads exactly like this-- very negative, obviously aimed right at the president on some of the core issues in this race. But Kathleen's absolutely right, I mean, this ad is indicative of most of the ads that they have run this year, really designed to keep the president's approval ratings low. And a lot of this money is pouring into some of these states like Ohio.

TERENCE SMITH: Kathleen Hall Jamieson, what struck you about the Swift Boat Veterans ad?

KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON: This is a campaign that we're going to study for a long time because it effectively laid in place the whole series of claims against Sen. Kerry that are implicitly reprised in the ad. If you've seen all of the previous ads, when you see these men with their medals, you fill in a lot of blanks that are unstated because they've been stated before. You fill in "he lied to get his medals," "he lied about us," "he lied when he came back to testify against the war." Again, in the emotion of the moment, of seeing the men with their medals, they're less likely to ask the critical question: Did he actually say that these individuals were war criminals? He actually didn't. That was out of context. But more importantly, it does the same sort of thing that the other ad does. It drives through emotion a very strong frame, and the cumulative frame of the Swift Vet ads goes like this: Sen. Kerry lied to get his medals, he lied about the war and about those participants when he got back; and as a result, he prolonged the war for the POW's. On the other side, however, there is a counter frame. It just hasn't been articulated in ads because the Kerry campaign didn't want to engage this issue in advertising. The other side would say he served heroically in Vietnam, he came back and heroically protested an unjust war, and as a result, he shortened the war. When people see these ads, they have to ask the question on both sides: Which of the frames do you accept about Iraq and about Vietnam?

TERENCE SMITH: Evan Tracey, did the two campaigns choose different places, networks, channels, et cetera, to place their ads?

EVAN TRACEY: The number-one difference, there's a lot of bracketing that goes on, in other words, the campaigns all want to be in the news, they all want to be on the morning shows. Where you see the biggest contrast between what the Bush campaign is doing and the Kerry campaign is doing is on cable. The Kerry campaign and the DNC have stayed exclusively, up until a few days ago, on the all-news channels trying to get in the background noise, if you were, with the opinion leaders and journalists. The Bush campaign has really aggressively pursued their base, and also men. They've been buying a lot of NASCAR programming, sports programming, outdoor programming, country music programming. So the largest difference we see when we analyze the two campaigns' buys really show up in their cable strategies.

TERENCE SMITH: Kathleen Hall Jamieson, I must ask you about that wolves' ad that we ran. I mean, what's the symbolism there?

KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON: Well, the important thing to remember about this kind of ad is that the symbolism is effective to the extent that you bring a whole set of previous charges forward from earlier ads. This ad isn't simply about proposed cuts in intelligence that Sen. Kerry supported a while ago. It also is supposed to reprove all of the anxieties that have been created around any votes he might have made in the past, or positions he might have taken in order to cut weapons systems; any suggestions in the past that he wasn't going to be strong enough on defense. And it's supposed to remind you, as well, of the charges that... for example, he might offer a global test, he may have said terrorism is a nuisance. Now, many of those charges in the context of the earlier ads were problematic. But if you saw those ads across time, and they were aired at high levels across time, you now see the wolves and suddenly you bring all of those back in. And all of those things suggest that if there are terrorists out there, if there is a world that's about to menace us, you might not want Sen. Kerry to be the one who is there to defend you. Then you cut to President Bush at the end in color, and you're supposed to be saying, "And I'm comfortable with him." There is, of course, the danger in this kind of ad: That you'll see the wolves and then you'll see the president. And the last line of the ad before the president suggests that weakness invites assault by wolves and possibly by terrorists. And then the weakness may be amalgamated to the president. If I were creating that ad, I think I would have put the disclaiming of the president at the beginning, not at the end.

TERENCE SMITH: Has this ad been a big buy?

EVAN TRACEY: This is an ad that they have clearly singled out as one that is very effective for them mostly through their focus grouping because this ad has replaced most of the other ads that the president has up on the air now. It's probably about 65 or 70 percent of his ad rotation. Almost $1 million a day is being spent on this ad alone.

TERENCE SMITH: So, Kathleen, that would suggest that this is the central message they want to get across through advertising?

KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON: If you feel anxious about Sen. Kerry, regardless of the content of the anxiety, whether it's intelligence votes, defense votes, whether it's tax increases, you're going to support the president. And in this kind of an environment, what you have is an ad that potentially has very real power if you're ready to fill in the rest of the blanks in the messages. If instead, however, you say, "Well, Porter Goss supported intelligence cuts and now he's in charge of the CIA was he inviting those wolves to attack us, and if so, why is he in charge?" then the ad is going to fail. But you're not likely to say that. In fact, you're not even likely to remember the ad was mentioning intelligence cuts because one of the things we know is when you have really evocative images and high emotional content, it tends to wipe out what came right before it.

TERENCE SMITH: The fourth ad that we showed was the Kerry campaign ad in which he was vigorously stating that he would defend the country and do what was necessary. What was the message there, Kathleen?

KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON: If Sen. Kerry is as decisive as he sounds in this ad, then the wolves are going to retreat and go back into the forest. In some ways, this is a rebuttal ad to the wolves' ad -- tosome extent also, because it doesn't tell you what it is that Sen. Kerry thinks President Bush advertisement is misleading you about, it becomes a generic rebuttal-- fill in whatever the attack was, and this is the response. And here's why it actually in some ways is. The fundamental attack on Sen. Kerry by the Bush/Cheney campaign is that he's indecisive. That's what flip-flopping is. And as a result, you can't trust him in the context of a war on terror. And as a result, what he's doing in the ad is not telling you what the charges are. Instead, he's sounding decisive and saying decisive things. If Sen. Kerry had sounded this decisive and said things that were that clear in straightforward, declarative sentences in the debate, in the sentence in which he talked about global threat, he wouldn't have been vulnerable to the Republican attacks.

TERENCE SMITH: Okay. And, Evan, I suppose the spending will go right up until the last minute?

EVAN TRACEY: Absolutely. As we said earlier, we're seeing about $45 million a week spent. Anecdotally, we're hearing about candidates buying a lot of radio time now. They're buying a lot of local cable time. You know, like I said, a lot of the cables buys have expanded. There is probably more money that these campaigns have to spend right now, than there is really time to buy. So I think you'll see a lot more creative uses of media to get messages out down the stretch.

TERENCE SMITH: Evan Tracey, Kathleen Hall Jamieson, thank you both very much.

KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON: You're welcome.

EVAN TRACEY: Thank you.

FOCUS - VOTING YOUR INTERESTS

JIM LEHRER: Now our business correspondent, Paul Solman of WGBH-Boston, looks at how much economic issues control what voters do on Election Day.

PAUL SOLMAN: The state of Kansas. Over the past few decades, as the American market economy was becoming freer, many Kansans were losing ground economically. And yet these same people began to vote for the champions of free market economics: The Republican Party. It was a puzzle to born-and-bred Kansas conservative, now-liberal Thomas Frank, who returned to his home state to write a book about conservative voting trends: "What's the Matter with Kansas?"

THOMAS FRANK: The aspect of this that interests me and that I write about in the book is a nation of people or even a region of people becoming more conservative as conservatism clearly suits their interests less and less and less.

PAUL SOLMAN: To Frank, economic conservatism, in cutting taxes on companies, on capital gains, on estates, and in its push for deregulation, for instance...

THOMAS FRANK: Has empowered management at the expense of labor-- has busted labor unions, you know, across the country; has made possible globalization, outsourcing. We are becoming a country more like the 19th century than we were in the middle of the 20th century in terms of the division of income and in terms of wage growth and that sort of thing. This is happening everywhere. This is not unique to Kansas. It's not unique to the Midwest. This is going on everywhere in America. The pay differential between CEO's and blue-collar workers, the income differential between the top 10 percent and the bottom 10 percent... there's any number of ways of looking at it. The shocking thing is that while this is going on, at the same time, you have a conservative revolution going on in this country that never seems to exhaust itself.

PAUL SOLMAN: Frank contends that conservatives have mobilized lower- and middle-income Americans to their cause, against their economic interests. Of course, many people see conservatism quite differently: As a catalyst for real economic growth that benefits everyone in the end, a point we'll return to shortly. But with the election just days away, in a setting about as American as you can get-- the Washington Mall-- we thought we'd explore the question: Are people voting against their own economic interests these days, and if so, why? Conservative Republicans, says Frank, have become dominant by defining what he says are two new social classes: Authentic Americans as against liberal elitists. He says the issues conservatives have focused on tend to define these classes-- abortion, say; gay marriage; or creationism as an alternative to evolution-- rallying points against the highly educated elites in places like New York and California. In buying into these new social categories, Franks argues, many lower-income Americans sacrifice their true economic interests to symbolic allegiances.

THOMAS FRANK: The Republicans, and conservatism generally, have advanced and enjoyed the kinds of successes that they have in the last 30 years because they have a way of speaking about social class, and they have a way of talking class war. It's a stereotype that is familiar to all of us from infinite repetition. It's the red states versus the blue states. It's a way of talking about class and a way of appealing to class antagonism and even stirring up class antagonism without actually talking about class.

PAUL SOLMAN: Without actually talking about economics?

THOMAS FRANK: Yeah, in the real sociological sense, without talking about economics. Economics are out of the picture. Class is a matter of tastes; class is a matter... above all, class is a matter of authenticity. Do you drive a Chevy or do you drive a Volvo? Do you drink, you know, Maxwell House or do you drink some affected, you know, Starbucks sort of thing?

PAUL SOLMAN: This is social class not in the old sense of the term-- upper, middle, and lower class-- but class as, well, almost tribal identity. Now, this may be an interesting argument; it's surely a controversial one. So we invited Republican thinker and former speechwriter for the president David Frum to respond. Have many lower-income Americans been hoodwinked to vote against their economic interests, which ought to incline them to the economic program of the Democrats? He had two responses. First:

DAVID FRUM: I wouldn't agree with that because I think their economic program does not serve the interests of those people. But let's say you were a Democrat and you did believe that. Doesn't that suggest that you ought to, then, show more respect for the cultural values of the people you are trying to mobilize? But what's happening, instead, is that some people make the argument Tom was making would say, "Well, just forget about these cultural concerns. Regard abortion as unimportant; regard immigration as unimportant; regard the flag and patriotism and the pledge of allegiance... we regard these things as unimportant."

PAUL SOLMAN: Creationism, Ten Commandments?

DAVID FRUM: Yes. "Garbage. Forget it, it's not... where the planet comes from, why we live, these are not important questions. The important questions are these economic ones." And you know, I think if you're going to take the interests of people at all levels of society seriously, you have to respect their values as well as their economic interests, however you see their economic interests. But I think you want to be really careful about saying to people when you go vote that it's okay to think about whether you'regoing to pay a little bit more or a little bit less retail sales tax. But the meaning of life; who's human; who's a member of our community; justice; fairness; equality; patriotism; civil rights-- you shouldn't think about those things, think only about that retail sales tax.

PAUL SOLMAN: Do you not respect their values?

THOMAS FRANK: I respect everyone's values, of course. The thing is... and here's a kind of an interesting historical parallel, is that we did... we went through a period very much like the present one in the 1920s, where all the political issues were cultural ones. And they were all about values and they were all about... we fought over immigration and we fought over evolution-- that was a big one. And we fought over prohibition. And then, along comes the Great Depression, and those issues just disappeared. They really did dry up and blow away.

PAUL SOLMAN: So then have the culturally and economically marginalized begun to vote against their own interests? Are those suffering economically, yet backing the president, voting counterproductively, as Tom Frank suggests?

DAVID FRUM: I think any theory about what is happening in American politics has also to give an answer to this question, which is, why is it that so many of the very wealthiest people in the society are moving toward the Democratic Party? Because that is a... at the same time as so many people in the middle classes and the working classes have moved Republican, the very richest have moved Democratic. So any theory has to explain why people like Michael Eisner and George Soros, people who are not blind to their economic interests, why they increasingly gravitate toward the Democratic Party.

THOMAS FRANK: This is a good one. This is the subject for my next book: "What's the Matter with Connecticut?" And look, there's a lot of different ways of looking at this, but by and large, the Republican Party... if you look at the policies that it enacts, the people that it benefits, it's still the party of business in America.

DAVID FRUM: I think most Republicans believe, and I believe, that when it's in the interests of everybody, is a society that is open to the maximum scope for individual talent -- a society of dynamism, a society where people can get ahead. And that means low taxes. That means a growing economy, and that's what Republican economics policies at their best, which they aren't always at, but at their best, trying to achieve.

THOMAS FRANK: This is, in my opinion, the weakest aspect of the Republican message, the sort of... the pure free-market ideology-- the religion of the market. And I think this is where Democrats really should be hammering. Inequality in this country is spectacularly visible right now. And it's something that is unprecedented in our lifetime, or much worse than it has ever been before in our lifetimes.

PAUL SOLMAN: Of course, there is one simple explanation for why people may not vote their pocketbooks this year: Other issues simply loom larger than economics. And indeed, folks on the Mall of America, outside the Air and Space Museum, to be precise, seemed to illustrate the point. A South Carolina lawyer voting for President Bush:

LARRY BRIGGS: His values and my values parallel pretty much.

PAUL SOLMAN: For others, like this Iowa farmer, war is the reason to back the president.

KEINV HADLEY: I support him, the way he took care of Iraq -- you know, 9/11 and all of that-- the terrorists.

PAUL SOLMAN: This Colorado mother was voting against the president, but again, not primarily for economic reasons.

JANET MEYERS: First is the moral issue. I don't think he's a moral president, and I don't think he's helped this country.

PAUL SOLMAN: For those interested in our poll, it came out almost exactly 50/50, Bush/Kerry, though given our sample size, the results are "anecdata" at best. On the other hand, not everyone was oblivious to their pocketbooks; not this Kerry voter from Syracuse, New York, for example.

CORY OWENS: With the socioeconomic ladder that I fit into, I think he's a better fit, better candidate for me.

PAUL SOLMAN: This, in the end, is how Tom Frank thinks most voters might be expected to behave, if only they knew what was really good for them. David Frum's final comment:

DAVID FRUM: Every person is the world's leading expert on what he or she feels and believes. And I don't think you ever want to tell people that they are mistaken about what their beliefs are and how they express them.

PAUL SOLMAN: Tom Frank?

THOMAS FRANK: We don't live in a world where everyone's interests are perfectly crystal clear all the time. People get things wrong all the time. I know I do.

PAUL SOLMAN: At the end of the day the question is, who has got it wrong, or right, this time?

FOCUS - AT LAST!

JIM LEHRER: And finally tonight, Ray Suarez notes the end to the Boston Red Sox's famous curse.

RAY SUAREZ: It was a four-game domination with timely hitting...

SPORTSCASTER: And that ball is ripped into right field. Walker is back at the wall. The Red Sox score first again. What a start. 1-0 Boston here in game four.

RAY SUAREZ: And powerful pitching.

SPORTSCASTER: Molina strikes out on a ball down and away. One out here in the third inning.

RAY SUAREZ: Last night the Red Sox won game four 3-0, making them World Series champions in a four-game sweep of the St. Louis Cardinals. Players celebrated winning Boston's first World Series since 1918, rushing the field.

SPORTSCASTER: That forever put that 1918 chant to rest.

RAY SUAREZ: And spraying each other with champagne in the locker room. Thousands of fans in Boston and across New England also celebrated the end of the so-called curse of the bambino, which began when the Sox traded Babe Ruth to the Yankees in 1920.

RAY SUAREZ: Here to discuss the series and the long-awaited win is Leigh Montville, author of "Ted Williams: The Biography of an American Hero." Montville was a longtime sports columnist for the Boston Globe and later for Sports Illustrated, and I'm guessing someone who didn't get a lot of high-quality work done today, huh, Leigh?

LEIGH MONTVILLE: No, not at all. I've been hearing from people I haven't heard from in a long time, on the Internet and on the phone. It's all kind of nice and sweet.

RAY SUAREZ: And Boston a happy place today?

LEIGH MONTVILLE: Oh, yeah. It's like the whole universe has been tilted. It's like we've been sitting here waiting for the messiah, and finally the messiah has showed up. We just don't know what to do. We're kind of bouncing around and wondering how we should act.

RAY SUAREZ: Well...

LEIGH MONTVILLE: Happy, I suppose.

RAY SUAREZ: It sounds like it. Let me ask you a left brain and right brain question. Amidst all the joy at finally winning one after all this time, is there much reflection on what kind of World Series it was?

LEIGH MONTVILLE: Well, it seemed like after the Yankees series and all of that stuff that the World Series seemed kind of dull and just matter of fact and get it out of the way. It wasn't a classic World Series at all. I don't know what happened to the Cardinals. But they really didn't show up.

RAYSUAREZ: So if you asked Boston fans on the street today, are they still pretty jazzed about getting up off the turf and making their archenemies the Yankees the biggest chokers in play-off history?

LEIGH MONTVILLE: Sure. Anything you can do badly to the Yankees is good for here. It's been such a long time of being second fiddle to the Yankees. I mean, the Red Sox finished second to the Yankees seven straight years. They finished second this year before the ALCS. People just don't know what to do. They've never beaten the Yankees in a meaningful series championship round thing. It's just strange. It's really strange.

RAY SUAREZ: I found a wonderful quote today from the author who wrote the book "When Bad Things Happen to Good People." The title may have had the Red Sox in mind. Rabbi Harold Kushner says...

LEIGH MONTVILLE: He was from Brockton, Massachusetts.

RAY SUAREZ: Yes, he is. "I would like to think this will make us normal. But will it be as much fun when we're normal." Are the Boston Red Sox just another baseball team now, one that loses a lot, wins occasionally?

LEIGH MONTVILLE: Well, that's the question. I mean, it's... that's the tinge of sadness here, that the story is done. You know, we've kind of finished this big beach, one of those sagas you take to the beach and it's 900 pages and you start reading in June and finish in September, this is kind of the end of the book. It's all come out well. We just don't know what the sequel is.

RAY SUAREZ: I guess we find out now whether Red Sox fans really secretly relished their victim hood and won't quite know what to put on in its place.

LEIGH MONTVILLE: I think we have. I think there has been a secret relishing of victim hood. I remember last year when Aaron Boone hit the home run in extra innings in the seventh game to beat the Red Sox, I felt kind of sad for about five minutes, and then there was a little part of me that said, well, yeah, the story goes on. I mean, I have never lived... I'm 60 years old and I have never lived under this situation. It's always been you lose the argument in the end. It's very, very strange.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, the New York Daily News this morning had its headline "See you in 2090" figuring that lightning might not strike again for 86 years, but now that mantle of futility moves elsewhere and I'm wondering if Red Sox players do, too, because that's been the model with very successful teams recently.

LEIGH MONTVILLE: Well, sure. I don't think so. I think the owners here are committed to spend money. In both Arizona and in Florida when they won the World Series, they just started... they had a yard sale and sold everybody off. I don't think that's going to happen here. I think the roster will look kind of different next year, but I don't think they're going to sell everybody off.

RAY SUAREZ: They do have to figure out what to do with piles and piles of reverse the curse t-shirts, however. Is there a parade there tomorrow?

LEIGH MONTVILLE: There is a parade on Saturday. I think that's going to be the big event. They're thinking as many as five million people could come to that. I think that's... I think there are people up in Maine who have always said for years and years, if the Red Sox ever win it, I'm going to that damn parade. I think they're going to be here.

RAY SUAREZ: Leigh, good to talk to you.

LEIGH MONTVILLE: Good to talk to you.

RECAP

JIM LEHRER: And, again, the other major developments of this day in the presidential race, President Bush said Sen. Kerry never takes a firm stand on anything. The senator said Mr. Bush never takes responsibility for anything. And doctors confirmed Palestinian Leader Arafat will be flown to Paris for medical treatment.

JIM LEHRER: And once again to our honor roll of American service personnel killed in Iraq. We add them as their deaths are made official and photographs become available. Here in silence are six more.

JIM LEHRER: We'll see you online, and again here tomorrow evening with Mark Shields and David Brooks, among others. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.